Boon

by Ed Kurtz

  “What he means,” said the first alderman, “is that we did not trust that you would not kill the messenger.”

  The second alderman tugged at his coat buttons.

  “We heard tell of your, ah, run-in with the fellow in the barber’s shop,” he said.

  “I did not kill him, either,” Boon said.

  “Only because I stopped you,” said Willocks, which was of course a God damned lie if anyone ever told one.

  I said, “That’s a God damned lie if anyone ever told one.”

  She hushed me.

  “Why did y’all drop the charges against Dejasu?” she asked.

  “We do not answer to this heathen woman,” said the second alderman.

  The first alderman ignored that. “It is a matter of good politickin’,” he said. “Dejasu’s brother is a judge of some standing and sacrifices must sometimes be made to maintain peace and order.”

  “Not that it will now,” said the third alderman.

  “The judge won’t like this a’tall,” said the first, shaking his head.

  “Forget the judge,” Boon said, and I thought up something halfway between a dire wish and a prayer that she would say no more. “He’s dead, too.”

  Willocks pushed his chair back and the third alderman gasped.

  “I suppose he killed himself, too?” the marshal said.

  I said, “Boon.”

  “Hell, no, he didn’t kill his self,” she said. “He figured on hanging us so I cut off his head with a saw.”

  “Oh, Christ,” I said. Two of the other men said the exact same thing.

  At the very least she didn’t mention that the judge had still been alive when she started cutting.

  “That’s just about as clear a confession as I ever heard,” said Marshal Willocks. He stood up and straightened the star on his chest like it was some powerful talisman. “Guess I got to arrest the both of you for that.”

  He wasn’t wearing his gun belt, which I reckoned was a right smart foolish thing for a lawman to do. The belt hung on a hook nailed into the wall behind him, his iron in the holster. He went for it. Boon had her Colt on him before he could turn fully around to get to the belt.

  “My God,” said the third alderman.

  “Now, you know that ain’t smart,” Willocks said. “Could be you beat the charge, depending on what happened up there. But there’s no beating killing a marshal. You’ll be hanged before Friday.”

  “I got plans for Friday,” Boon said. “Won’t be able to make it.”

  “Hand over that piece,” he said. “All you got to do is sit in the cell until the next term of court. There’s a circuit judge due in Darling before August. You’ll eat better in my jail than you would on the run, believe me.”

  “Touch that leather and I’ll shoot you in the belly just for the hell of it,” she said.

  “Jesus, you are a mean woman,” he said.

  Boon grinned. “Mean as they come.”

  She motioned for the door with her head, which I took to mean I should go and get my rifle. I didn’t let the door open too wide on account of I didn’t want anybody out on the street to see what was going on inside. It was a good thing, too, because the remains of Bartholomew Dejasu had drawn a small audience outside, not counting the flies. His pockets were turned out by someone looking for a little coin, which would have left them disappointed. I’d already looted them.

  Fortunately, the would-be thief let my rifle alone. I pulled it from where I’d stashed it above the nag’s bony ass and jacked a cartridge into the breech with a crowd of a dozen Darling citizens watching me closely. One of them, a woman in an enormous blue hat, said, “Did you kill that man? Was he bad?”

  “Every man is bad,” I told her. I went back inside, squeezing through the crack in the door and shutting it quickly.

  “Listen to me,” Willocks said to me. “You can put a stop to this. That’ll get you amnesty.”

  “Never did meet a lawman with an ounce of loyalty in him,” I said. “Don’t reckon I ever will.”

  Boon still had her Colt trained on Willocks, so I turned the rifle at the aldermen.

  “I don’t much care which of you I shoot first,” I told them. “I ain’t fussy.”

  “We got an agreement,” Boon said to Willocks.

  “We don’t have shit,” he said.

  “We got an agreement,” she repeated. “You got your man. He’s lashed to my mount right outside. I’d’ve brung him in but he’s starting to stink. That’s my part of the agreement took care of, Marshal.”

  “You don’t listen too good. That was an unlawful killing. I don’t owe you a thing.”

  “Point of fact,” I said, “you owe her two hundred dollars and some information.”

  “Information?” said the first alderman. “What information?”

  “About her mama,” I said.

  “Shut up, Edward,” Boon said.

  “I was just saying.”

  “Well, don’t.”

  The first alderman said, “What’s this all about, Willocks?”

  The marshal was beginning to sweat a little. The fat men had been sweating the whole time, but Tom Willocks’ sweat was different.

  He said, “I told her I had good intelligence about the whereabouts of her mother.”

  “Do you?” said the alderman.

  “No,” Willocks said. “That was just to get her out of town. Both of them, her and the Dutchman. I didn’t figure on them surviving a meet-up with Bartholomew Dejasu.”

  “He preferred Barry,” I said. Boon threw me another look.

  The alderman said, “It was not the truth.”

  “No, it was not,” said the marshal.

  “We’ll see,” Boon said. “First you’re going to pay me what you owe. We’ll go down to the bank and you’ll withdraw two hundred dollars in double eagles from the town coffers. Then you, me, and Edward here are going to ride together out of Darling so as we can have a little privacy for what we’re going to do later.”

  “Later?” Willocks said. He was really sweating now. “What are you going to do later?”

  “Get to the truth,” Boon said. “I know a couple ways to be sure.”

  We took the first alderman with Willocks. Boon said she didn’t think the bank would give up the two hundred dollars on just the marshal’s say-so. That struck me funny and I laughed a little, but she just looked sour and said, “We ain’t robbing them, Edward.”

  The other two aldermen went into one of the two cells in the back of the office, which she locked. Then the four of us walked quietly and quickly up the street to the bank, where the first alderman calmly explained to the clerk in a soft voice that he was withdrawing two hundred from the town funds to pay a contractor. If he was doing anything that could be interpreted as a signal, I didn’t notice it. If Boon noticed anything, she made so sign.

  After the bank, we returned to the marshal’s office. Boon unlocked the cell and shoved the last alderman into it with his cohorts. To Willocks, she said, “Got a horse?”

  He didn’t answer, so she slapped him across the face. His cheek turned bright red and there was hate in his eyes.

  “At the livery stable,” he said.

  “All right.”

  We all three went back outside, where she directed me and Willocks to carry Dejasu’s corpse inside. We dumped it on the floor. On the way out again, I heard the aldermen complaining about the smell.

  The livery stable was on the far opposite side of Darling, pretty much the only part of town we hadn’t seen yet. Boon rode her palomino with the .44 in her right hand, rested against the saddle horn. I walked the nag and Willocks walked in front of me. When we reached the stable, I said, “I’m trading this’un for something better.”

  “Be quick about it,” Boon said.

  The marshal identified a bay gelding as his mount. It was a good-looking animal, strong and sharp-eyed. I stabled the nag and selected a spotted Appaloosa as well as decent saddle tack and some sundries
for the horse. Boon paid for them out of the money we’d gotten at the bank.

  Willocks scoffed about that.

  “You reckon not stealing is going to save your neck?”

  “Ain’t a thief,” was all she had to say about that.

  “No,” said Willocks. “Just a killer.”

  “Some folks need killing.”

  “I don’t think you’ll ever make it to any trial,” he said. “I ’spect you’ll get cut down before it comes to that. I know your kind. You’ll go to hell with a gun in your hand.”

  “Last man tried to judge me in a court of law didn’t send me to hell,” she said. “But sure, I’ll go with a gun in my hand when I do.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  We rode south, past the few homesteaders and hopeful ranchers scattered about the land outside of town. Nobody said much for the first three or four hours. Willocks sighed a lot. I rolled cigarettes and smoked to pass the time. In the late afternoon, we stopped and picketed the horses and nooned with some victuals. It wasn’t much, because we didn’t have much. Just some pemmican and a little briny water from Boon’s canteen. Willocks acted as though he didn’t want any of it at first, but his belly overruled him. He chewed like he was mad about it.

  “That all the riding we going to do?” I asked.

  Boon thought it over.

  “Depends,” she said after a while.

  She was looking out over the prairie, back in the direction of Darling. Searching for sign of us being followed, I reckoned. We both knew it wouldn’t take too long.

  While she watched the horizon, I dozed a little. It was still light when I snapped awake again, by which time Boon was stepping back up into her saddle.

  “We’ll go a little farther,” she said.

  I squinted at the horizon but I didn’t see anything. I figured she had, and her eyes were a damn sight better than mine.

  “Abduction is one thing,” Willocks said. “Murder is another. Best you quit while you’re ahead.”

  He wasn’t looking at either of us, so I supposed he was speaking to both of us. He stood beside his gelding and made no move to mount it.

  “We ain’t square yet,” Boon said. “Get on your horse.”

  “I done told you already,” the marshal snarled, “I don’t know a damn thing worth telling you.”

  “We’ll see,” she said.

  The sun turned orange and the horizon purple before we halted again, which was some two hours after our stop for victuals. Darling was some piece behind us and nothing was in sight ahead of us but grass and cedar elms bunched in sedges. Boon surveyed the environment and made clicking sounds in her throat. Then she put her heel to Pim’s ribs and we rode some more.

  The land rose to a shaggy hummock and we went up and over it. On the other side, at the bottom of the rise, stood a small cabin with grease paper windows and a mud roof that sprouted grass and weeds and wildflowers. Texas was something else for wildflowers. A thin line of black smoke rose up from the crooked chimney on the cabin’s northside. Boon relaxed in the saddle and let the palomino just sort of meander down to the cabin all on its own like it knew where it was heading, which I gathered it did. Me and Willocks followed, me watching carefully and him grumbling under his breath.

  We hitched up when we got there, tied off to a fence that penned in nothing at all. Boon dismounted and stretched out her back.

  Willocks said, “The hell is this.”

  She didn’t answer. I gave the marshal a shove to encourage him to dismount, too. Once he did, I got down after him.

  Boon went slowly around the cabin, listening and looking, and made her way to the door.

  “Franklin Merrick,” she called out. “Get your ass out here. It’s Boon Angchuan and I got two men with me.”

  “Who the God damned hell is Franklin Merrick?” Willocks asked me.

  I shrugged. It was all I could do on account of I had no idea who in the God damned hell Franklin Merrick was.

  “Fuck off,” came a gravely voice from inside the cabin.

  Willocks chuckled at that. I just watched and waited.

  “You going deaf, Merrick?” Boon shouted. “I said it’s Boon here.”

  “I heard you fine,” Merrick said. “You hear me? I say fuck off.”

  “I hear you,” she said.

  “Then what in hell is you waiting for?” Merrick said.

  “For you to get over something happened too long ago to care about,” said Boon. “I happen to be in your neck of the woods and I happen to need your help. We’re old friends, Franklin, whatever went on before.”

  I’d ridden with Boon some years by then and she hadn’t ever mentioned Franklin Merrick to me, so I was completely in the dark. That something had gone on between the two of them was plain enough, as was the fact that whatever it was, it was some kind of bad business. For a long while, nobody said anything at all. Boon leaned against the side of the cabin and crossed her arms. I rolled up a smoke and dragged on it, kicking at the dirt at my feet. Willocks started to look a little wily, but I made sure he knew I was watching him. Eventually, the sun vanished behind the horizon and the sky went dark. The only light by which to see was the faint, soft glow behind Merrick’s grease paper windows. I could hear him rustling around in there, going about his business as though we’d gone and lit out.

  At least an hour passed like that before Merrick shouted through the door again.

  “Them two men with you,” he said. “Who are they?”

  “Edward Splettstoesser, friend of mine from Arkansas.”

  “And the other?”

  “A marshal,” she said. “Name of Tom Willocks.”

  “A Prussian and a lawman,” Merrick said. “You figure on taking me in?”

  “Nope,” Boon said.

  “What you figure on, then?”

  “Marshal ain’t with us willingly. Might know something I’d like to know, too, only he won’t talk.”

  “You still looking for your kin?”

  “I am.”

  “That what he knows about?”

  “Could be.”

  Merrick got to chuckling about that. Another few minutes passed in silence before the door opened and a tall colored man filled the opening. He looked at Boon, then to me and Willocks, then back to Boon again.

  “Boonsri Angchuan,” he said with a grin.

  “How do, Franklin,” she said.

  He wrapped his big arms around her and she fell into his embrace.

  Willocks said, “An Oriental and a nigger—what’s next, a red Indian?”

  By way of reply, I put my elbow in his stomach. Willocks bent over with a long, windy moan.

  “You bastard,” he spat.

  “Keep talking,” I warned him, “and I will keep hurting you.”

  He didn’t keep talking.

  Franklin Merrick paid it no mind, and neither did Boon. They were in their own little world, a world with a lot of history. I wondered about it, but I knew I’d never ask. She’d either volunteer the story or she wouldn’t. That was how Boon was.

  “Which one the lawman?” Franklin asked.

  “The pretty one,” she told him.

  “Shit,” I said. “I ain’t so bad.”

  “Shut up, Edward,” she said.

  “You want me to help you get him talking,” Franklin said.

  “I was in your neck of the woods,” she said.

  “Been a long time, Boon.”

  “Lot of years,” she agreed.

  “Never settled things.”

  “Never did.”

  Merrick leaned his great bulk against the door jamb and worked his jaw like he was gnawing on something. I guessed he was chewing on the prospect of helping Boon with something pretty ugly. He chewed on it for some time.

  When he was done chewing on it, he said, “Just you and the marshal. The Prussian waits outside.”

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Hey nothing,” Merrick barked at me. “This here is my place and I don�
�t let nobody I don’t know into my place.”

  “You don’t know him,” I said, jerking a thumb at Willocks.

  “You want what he’s gonna get, you come right in,” Merrick said.

  I decided I didn’t want that.

  “All right,” I said. “You got anything close to liquor?”

  He frowned. Boon touched his elbow and nodded at him. Merrick went back into the cabin and came back out with a bottle. It was about half-full of something brown. He tossed it to me and I caught it.

  “Obliged,” I said, and I yanked the cork.

  Willocks moaned some more.

  “What’re they going to do?” he said.

  I shrugged.

  “You can’t stand by this,” he said. “You can’t. Matter of fact, I’ll see to it you walk away free if you let me go.”

  “You try and go,” I said, “and I’ll cut you down.”

  “Back-shooter,” he seethed.

  I shrugged again.

  Boon said, “No sense wasting time, then.”

  She moved behind Willocks and drove him forward while Merrick seized him by the arm and pulled him into the cabin. Boon came in last and shut the door. I heard it latch. One of the horses nickered. I moved away apiece and sat down in the short grass and pulled long at the neck of the bottle. It was dreadful stuff. But it did the trick.

  Inside the cabin, Marshal Tom Willocks screamed. It didn’t take long. I drank some more. It got better the more of it I drank. In my head I could see Boon sawing off the marshal’s head, and no matter how much I tried not to think about that, it was all I could think about. Of course, a headless man wasn’t going to tell her anything. But Boon was capable of just about anything. And the fact of the matter was that I wasn’t sure how I ought to feel about that anymore.

  How could a man ride with someone for as long as I’d ridden with Boon and not hardly ever know what to expect from her? A good part of it was that I was accustomed to sorting things out about people based on what I already knew about people in general, and there wasn’t anybody else in the whole country like her. Maybe the whole world, though I’d never been to any other countries except maybe Mexico so I couldn’t speak to that. I had my suspicions, though. I did not honestly believe there lived the likes of her in any corner of the planet. That was a bit of what drew me to her. It was a bit of why she scared me more that I wanted to admit, too.